About me and why I’m doing this
Hi! Nice to meet you, I’m Daisy. And this is where I’ll be documenting my big experiment: writing two novels in a new genre simultaneously using NovelAI and Sudowrite as assistants, publishing them together, and seeing how they go.
I’ll explain more about this big experiment later. But first, something about me, so you know where I stand and why I’m doing this project.
My life right now
I’m a stay-at-home mother to a neurodivergent, physically disabled son, and I’m “unschooling” him. I might expand more on unschooling in a later post, and why we chose it for him, but it means his life is child-led. At this point, he needs constant company and support, and frequent physical therapy, but he pursues his own interests pretty freely. I’m also physically disabled and inattentive-type ADHD, and I loathed the working world. Mine is a very happy, fortunate life that gives me a lot of writing time.
My brilliant wife works hard to give us this chance. She’s my true love, best friend, and the best mother (well, equal with my own Mum).
Publishing and Writing History
My writing has been mostly for pleasure. I write a lot of fanfic and “Original Work” which is very fanficcy, honestly. I self-published two YA lesbian novels about eleven years ago that did better than I expected, but never capitalised on that because my baby (finally) came.
I self-publish pretty casually. My usual rate is one erotic short a month, and frankly, I do that mostly to get used to the process of actually putting things up there. I have another m/m novella out that still sells every now and then and got some really good reviews by people who somehow found it for their blogs (marketing is not my strong point, as in, I publish and hope) but the erotic shorts fund my fountain pen habit.
My main hurdle is inconsistency. Researching and learning a niche and devouring advice and writing my first short or novel? Joy. Consistency and capitalising on earlier books? Huh. I have a finished m/m romance and a finished space opera/psychological thriller with a bisexual female protagonist that have been waiting for me to finish the next two in the series so they are ready to go for…. years. Plus so many half-finished projects in other genres. The shiny new project is always begging for my attention. (ADHD, represent.)
Trade publication is not for me. I have Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) and while I can handle a book flopping, a critical rejection would send me into a spiral. It doesn’t feel good to admit, but that’s the fact. I don’t look at reviews, my wife and understanding friends tenderly beta and feed me positive reviews they’ve found.
The AI bit
I discovered Sudowrite a couple of months ago, and NovelAI after. I love them both. I don’t really use any prose they generate — more on that for a later post — but unsticking my brain and getting me to focus? Great. I’ve been using them for erotic shorts while working really hard on projects I actually care about (aforesaid sequels, for example.)
They’ve been kind of magic, in different ways. Sudowrite’s Story Engine feels like it takes the vivid emotions and images and characters in my head and step by step arranges them into a logical narrative, leaving me with an in-depth scene-level outline that I can use to write with. It’s very outlining heavy. NovelAI is for more of a discovery writing approach. It lets me write away as usual, and when I get stuck, it finds directions for the story to go in so I can pick one and go off with it. And it copies my writing style to an impressive degree. Not a single perfect sentence, but it feels like me, if that makes sense. (Sudowrite — nah.)
Both have crappy manuals, steep learning curves and supportive userbases, but Sudowrite especially so. Met so many lovely helpful writers, and not at all the crypto dude You Can Make $1000 Writing a Book In a Week types I was half expecting.
I’ve been trying to combine the apps, but they feel like different use cases so far.
So…
The project
I’m going to start from scratch. New pen name, new niche. I’m going to be transparent about every step of the way, how much is AI-assisted and how much is just me, what I think, what I do, what I spend in time and money, and what I make. I am aiming for however long it takes of prep (Sudowrite in particular is very prep-focused), and a chapter a week of each book alternately (because I’ll still be working on my other projects.)
One book will be NovelAI-assisted, one will be Sudowrite-assisted, so I can compare the projects directly.
And hopefully, learn more myself about ethical use of AI-assisted writing.
I’ll probably be posting about related stuff as well, because I need a place to pour out my thoughts. I miss LiveJournal, okay? But the plan is weekly posts on chapters once I start the actual writing, one chapter of each book every two weeks.
Final bit about me
Identity list, if it matters. Australian with joint British citizenship, lesbian (I also identify as gay, LGBT+ and queer, but not WLW so please don’t use it for me), trans inclusive, inattentive-type ADHD, cis female, she/her, fat, demisexual, late Gen X/early Millennial cusp (but I identify as Gen X because they had better music.)
